


Becalm

by Pigeon



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies), Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-20
Updated: 2008-07-20
Packaged: 2017-10-18 20:13:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/192841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pigeon/pseuds/Pigeon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Pearl is becalmed, and Jack and Will fill the hours with tales and truths.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Becalm

  
Fidelity - 1494, from M.Fr. _fidélité_ , from L. _fidelitatem_ (nom. _fidelitas_ ) "faithfulness, adherence," from _fidelis_ "faithful," from _fides_ "faith"

 _A truth that’s told with bad intent  
Beats all the lies you can invent_  
\- Blake, ‘Auguries of Innocence’

 _Truth lies within a little and certain compass, but error is immense_  
\- Henry St John, Lord Bolingbroke

  
~

 _“And so they made me their King…”_

The breeze had disappeared three days and nights ago.

They’re well stocked on the essentials- fresh water, cured meats and biscuits, tea black and green, tobacco, and rum- so as yet there is no strumming undercurrent of alarm amongst the crew.

Ana spends these slow and lazy days, when the sun beats down upon the deck and the men around her lie heat-dazed and slothful, twisting and turning her body in the moves Will has taught her with the sword. For her part she has tried to impart to him her knowledge of pistols (but the boy has no eye and still cannot hit a mainsail at ten yards).

Gibbs spends the hours touring the ship checking on the wear and tear that mark up the struts and stays of the _Pearl_. With each new splintering and rotting plank he finds he sips at his flask and makes a fig hand before noting the position in his book.

Jack and Will spend long stretches of time in the main cabin, away from the greedy eyes of the crew, and the whistles and the comments, and the _goddamn_ spectacle of it all.

~

 _“And so the Duchess thanked me for saving her from the pygmies by…”_

Will is only slightly unnerved by the stillness of the _Pearl_. The steady _rock-rock-rock_ of her has become as familiar as his own heartbeat, as the sharp-heavy scent of the forge, of the taste of Jack in his mouth. _This_ , this near sullen calm, has set an itch between his shoulderblades.

The sheets are sweat-damp and Will feels Jack fidget beside him- an arm suddenly being thrown across his chest before being just as suddenly withdrawn, a rather bony knee being jabbed into his thigh, a fast inhale as if to mark the start of a sentence before silence.

The inertia of the _Pearl_ has induced a wrought-ness, a fierce and jagged quickening in her captain.

And Will knows it is this, far more than the motionlessness of the ship, which has his skin prickling.

Will twists onto his side, wrapping the long length of his legs over Jack’s. “Tell me something,” he whispers.

“Well,” Jack begins. “Was a time I was in the South Seas, Darlin’. Waves high as a Mermaid’s tit, and the crew was as green as a…”

Will let’s Jack’s voice soften to a blur. Jack’s stories are always fun, full of heroics and danger and women with improbably large busts, and are all utter nonsense. Will traces lines and figures on Jack’s skin, listening now for the cadence of Jack’s voice, the words and meaning lost.

As his fingers skate along Jack’s collarbone he hears a roughened edge creep into Jack’s tone. As his touch trips down Jack’s breastbone and skims over flat belly, the sound turns deeper, darker.

He lets his touch slow to a halt somewhere just south of Jack’s naval.

He waits for a low growl, a sign that all of Jack’s buzzing and jittery energy is now focussed solely on _here_ , on this cabin, on this bed, on Will’s touch and Will’s body.

“Will, darlin’, you thinking about continuing that thought anytime soon, luv?”

And there it is.

A coarse rumble.

All thunder and sparks of light.

“Hmm?” Will beats out a lazy tattoo. “Sorry, what was it you wanted, Jack?”

The _Pearl_ still doesn’t move, sails slack and breathless, but Jack feels his blood coursing fast and hot, and twists and turns and tussles with Will until they are both gasping and slick and loose-limbed from the fever of it all.

As Jack curls a hand around Will’s hip, feet kicking off a sheet from their too hot bodies, he hears Will begin his own tale- a little nothing tale with no heroes or villains and not a scrap of nonsense in it anywhere.

~

 _“And so the Sea-Snake turned and vanished off back to…”_

The lassitude of the crew disappears when Jack takes up centre-stage. Soon as he begins any tale, all with wide hand gestures and ferocious grin, the crew gather at his feet, same as children at story time.

Will holds a sword in each hand. This is his latest practise, the balance and poise needed without one arm free to counterpoint. He twirls and snakes his form through strict figure-eight motions, feet dancing light against the deck of the _Pearl_.

Only on occasion does Will allow his eyes to slide to where Jack holds court.

Only on occasion does Will watch as Jack speaks faster than he is used to, with windmilling arms, with restless hands that keep coming up to tug at the narrow braids that hang from his chin.

~

 _“And so the ghoulie thought that I was…”_

Will is scrubbing the dirt and sweat and sea-salt from his face as Jack enters the cabin.

He can remember the few questions Jack had asked him when he’d turned up, small satchel thrown over one shoulder, asking to join the crew of the _Pearl_.

He can remember the few questions Jack had asked him when Will had shifted from bunking down with the crew to bunking down in the Captain’s cabin.

He can remember not having lied, having gifted Jack with the truth no matter what ache it set off in him with each word imparted.

And he can remember…

He scrubs the last of the grime from his face and neck, flicking wet hair back, patting at his face with a cloth that had seen its best at least five years previous.

It’s been a few long months since Will made the move to Jack’s bed. A few long months since he walked into the cabin, heart in throat, stripped, and clambered in between the sheets with nary a word said.

“When I was sixteen,” he begins without preamble. “A journeyman blacksmith stayed a handful of nights with us. Taught me more than Brown ever did.”

“He your first, lad?”

“Yes.”

Will hauls off his shirt- the cabin is stifling, a thick layer of heat and dust. “After him was a navy-man. He’s still in Port Royal.” Will tugs off his boots and breeches and flops inelegantly down on the bed. He stretches his arms above his head. “I wasn’t true to them- not in any real sense.”

Jack steps up close to the bed, only pausing to snatch at a half full bottle of rum on the way. He thinks of Will, this painfully young Will, and it takes a moment before he finds his next words, “You running about on the side, luv?”

“No, don’t be an ass, Jack.” Will flicks dark eyes over to Jack. “I wasn’t _unfaithful_ , I just… I wasn’t _true_.”

“You were young.”

Will smiles, and Jack is reminded of a sparse few weeks ago when he’d cooked up some desperate cockeyed scheme that would get them all fabulously wealthy. Will, being the youngest, and being one of the few with all his own teeth (and none of them gold) was dressed up in silks and satins, had his hair carefully washed and combed, his skin powdered to pass for gentry.

Jack had smiled at the disguise.

Jack had pretty much ruined the white silk breaches Will wore, and gotten the boy’s newly tamed hair in knots and tangles as soon as he saw him.

And then Will had finished off the look by slowly scraping off the fine dark hair that dotted his chin and upper lip.

And Jack’s heart had stuttered a little.

Just a little.

Fresh-faced the boy had looked like nothing so much as that, a _boy_.

Far too bloody young to be running around on pirate ships, in Jack’s opinion. Far too bright-eyed, pale, and untouched.

The fine dusting of hair has since grown back, and though youth may be on the lad’s side, Jack knows full well that Will is no kiddiewink that should be coddled and spoilt.

“Jack?” Will’s voice is low, and he stretches his arms higher, wrapping large capable hands around the bars of the headboard. The motion sends ripples down his chest, all the tight solid muscles shifting as a breath catches and his hips cant.

“Yes, William?”

“I wasn’t true to _them_ …”

Jack shakes his head a little. The day is slipping away and the sun is striking through the window, a warm yellow shaft that is turning Will’s skin golden. Drinking a deep mouthful of rum, Jack drops down to the bed beside Will, setting wet rum-sopped kisses against his jaw and down the length of his throat.

Will murmurs his approval, tilting his head back further.

Jack trails bites and kisses down the length of Will’s torso; smiling at the gasps this elicits when his braids catch and tickle, smiling as, no matter how Will squirms, he keeps his arms pinned securely above his head, his body stretched taunt.

“Jack.” It is torture, sweet, and sharp, and maddening. Will wants to move, wants to tussle with Jack as they normally do, scuffling and tickling and biting, grasping and laughing as kisses are exchanged with strokes and pinches.

Will wants to thread his fingers through Jack’s hair, hold his mouth tight against his own, press his thigh up against Jack’s hardness, feel the tremors that run through Jack’s body where a palm rests splayed across his back.

But this is his gift to Jack, and he will give his all.

Jack bites a bruise hard into Will’s hip, suckling at the skin as it darkens, feeling Will’s body tense beneath his hands.

“ _Oh_.” Will swallows back a breathless curse.

Jack bites further bruises, small round perfect purpling bruises, into the soft white flesh of Will’s thighs.

“Oh. _Jack_.”

“Hmm?” Jack hums against Will’s skin. “You like that, Sweetheart?” He nudges the boy’s legs further apart, settling himself comfortably between them.

“Christ.” Will shudders, hands flexing around the bars of the headboard convulsively.

“Give me time,” Jack murmurs, switching his attention back to the darkening spot on the lad’s narrow hipbone.

Will swears again, eyes shutting tight.

Jack lazily spends the next five minutes doing nothing but mouthing at the bruise, before alternating to the string of marks on Will’s inner thighs, and back again.

He sucks at the hurts, worrying at them with teeth and tongue, listening as Will’s curses get more breathless, more frantic, skin slicked with sweat. Listens until Will goes silent, just the ragged sounds of his gasps audible in the cabin.

The sun sets and still Jack teases.

It seems hours later when Will feels rum, sticky but cool, deliciously cool, splashed liberally and without warning on his overheated skin and Jack’s mouth finally moves to swallow him down.

He cries out.

And the world narrows to the furnace of Jack’s mouth.

It takes time for him to recover, and by the point at which he feels able to open his eyes and is once again aware of the bed beneath him, Jack is already sliding in, filling him, and is all stifled moans and coiled want above him.

~

 _“And so the Archbishop blessed the sea-turtles and I…”_

“Tell me something,” Will whispers.

They’ve slept. Curled around each other with sticky skin and drying sweat, elbows knocking into stomachs, and the scent of sex heavy upon them.

Jack pauses. He could tell Will about the Madam and the Eastern Dragon, or the one about the Six Virgin Maids and the Witchdoctor, or even The Banshee and the Rowboat.

“Tell me something,” Will repeats, shifting just enough that he can press his lips to Jack’s shoulder.

“Last time like this,” Jack clears his throat. “Last time I was becalmed was just ‘fore the mutiny. Crew tend to get restless in this sorta situation. Let their minds go wandering where they shouldn’t. I was kept distracted, and…”

Will nods slightly, folding his body tighter into Jack’s space as Jack’s voice tails off to nothing.

The men on deck have started in on a song, and the sound of it drifts faintly to them.

Will stretches, his arms aching slightly from their exertions. A moment later and Jack shifts up, hand groping for his rum. And then Will laughs as Jack suddenly starts in on a tale about Eleven-fingered Nelly and her Dancing Troupe, and lets the words drift lazily from him.


End file.
